Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.23
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
Q. Does this render him incapable of speaking under oath the truth?
A. Can you show to me the passage in your book where you
mention these facts which is necessary for an assessment
of the reliability of his evidence?
Q. Does it render him incapable of speaking truth under oath
in a case like this?
A. As the court recognized, he did not speak the truth under
oath. It dispensed him of having to take the oath because
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he was regarded as a biased witness.
Q. When you translate the passage, "Es ist ein schones
Zeichen von Ihnen, wenn Sie zu Gunsten Ihres Fuhrers
aussagen", you translated that as: It is a nice testimony
to you, that you are speaking out on behalf of your
leader." What is the German for "testimony"?
A. I can put a nice sign of you, that is fine, it just does
not sound quite right in English.
Q. What is the German for "testimony"? Is it "zoitnes"?
A. Something like that, yes.
Q. So you have mistranslated a word there?
A. No, I disagree. I am trying to find something that
reads
reasonably well in English. I think the meaning is
the
same. Can you just to point to me the page?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I cannot find it.
MR IRVING: Page 230, paragraph 2, the last line.
A. Yes, if you want to do it literally it is a beautiful
sign
of you when or if you speak out in favour of your
leader.
Q. That would be a bit wooden.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: It reflects well on you?
A. It reflects well on you. It is a nice testimony to
you.
I do not mean by using the word -- may I just fish, Mr
Irving? I do not mean by using the word "testimony"
it
has anything to do with the testimony he has given.
MR IRVING: But it would be a bit wooden, would it not,
that
translation if you were to translate it with sign and
all
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the rest of it?
A. Yes, it would. "It is a beautiful sign of yours". I
am
trying to steer a course here between -- we have
spoken
about this before.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a free translation, but it is an
entirely accurate one.
MR IRVING: You appreciate the point I am trying to make,
your
Lordship?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do, but I am afraid I am not very
impressed
by it.
MR IRVING: Not impressed by it? The fact that one is
inclined
to take liberties in a literary sense with a sentence
in
order to make it more legible.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: As long as you get the flavour of what is
being said right.
MR IRVING: Is not the correct translation of that sentence
"good for you, good for you that you are speaking out
on
before of your leader"?
A. No.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not quite.
A. If I may say so, the judge was obviously rather
pompous
and says it in this rather kind of convoluted pompous
way,
not in that colloquial manner.
MR IRVING: Is it not exactly the same as when his Lordship
says things like, "You have done rather well, Mr
Irving",,
for example, as his Lordship did yesterday, we take it
at
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face value and it is not something to be taken all
that
literally?
A. What he says is, "It is a beautiful sign of you when
you
or it is a nice testimony to you or good for you", if
you
want to put it colloquially, "it is not just good for
you
or you have done well; it is good for you that you are
speaking out on behalf of your leader", that is what
he is
saying, your leader. It is quite clear the presiding
judge regards ----
MR IRVING: But he is not actually saying ----
A. --- regards -- may I finish, Mr Irving? May I just
finish?
Q. But you carry on and on and on?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, come on. This is a witness
who is
trying to answer a point you have made and let he him
finish, if he can remember where he had got to.
A. It is quite clear the judge knows from the start to
finish
that Hofmann, that Hitler is Hofmann's leader and he
treats the evidence accordingly.
MR IRVING: Is it not just a throw away remark by his
Lordship
in this case to put this witness at his ease, and that
is
exactly what happens again and again and again in the
courtroom, and you have put all this pompous
significance
on to it in order to try to undermine the value of
this
police sergeant who is doing his job?
A. First of all, I agree of course that it is intended to
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make, it is a nice comment, the judge is trying to be
nice
to Hofmann. After all, Hofmann whose has not been
treated
very well. He has not been allowed to present
evidence on
oath. He has been told that he is too heavily
involved in
the whole thing, but he says, "it is your leader", and
it
is quite clear to anybody who reads this rather brief
section of testimony that everybody is perfectly well
aware that this man's evidence is tainted, because
Hitler
is his leader, not just because of that statement, but
also because, as he says, he was with Hitler
frequently,
he was head of the political section of the Nazi
party's
Intelligence Unit, participated in the Putsch,
accompanied
Hitler for most of the evening of the Putsch.
Q. But cutting to the bottom line, is there any reason to
believe that this witness made the whole story up? Is
there any reason, any subjective or objective reason
why
we should accept that he made the whole story up?
A. Which story?
Q. The story about how he had been a witness of Hitler,
ticking off this lieutenant and throwing him out of
the
party?
A. There is a serious reason to distrust that testimony.
Q. Purely on the basis of the fact he was a Nazi ----
A. I do not think it was taken very seriously by the
court,
and I think that a responsible author has to present
this
particular problem to the readership. If you want to
make
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use of Hofmann's evidence you simply have to say that
he
is heavily involved in the Putsch, he is a Nazi party
supporter and is regarded as such by the court.
Q. Your final criticism is that I do not give proper
source
notes for this, is that correct?
A. Yes. Where is this?
Q. Well, that I failed to provide a proper footnote
reference. It is the bottom of page 230.
A. Yes.
Q. Is that a serious criticism or is just your irritation
that you had to go and look in the index of your
printed
edition of this trial?
A. Well, it is more than that. I think that you have
made it
deliberately difficult for people to go and check it
out.
Q. I have made it deliberately difficult?
A. Yes.
Q. In what way?
A. Do you want to have a look at the footnote reference
which
you provide or do not provide?
Q. Is it not correct that I give the reference as being
microfilm version of the trial of the Bavarian people
against Adolf Hitler and others?
A. Yes, that is 8,000 pages, as you said, Mr Irving. I
do
think that simply referring to an 8,000 page
collection
does make it difficult. You could, for example,
easily
have put the day on which it occurred and given a
frame
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number, if there are frame numbers, or a real number,
if
there are real numbers. There are ways in which you
can
be more precise.
Q. Will you take it from me that the American publisher
William Morrow asked me to cut 2,000 lines out the
proofs
of this book. In other words, at proof stage, they
said,
Mr Irving, please cut 2,000 lines out of this book.
Can
you accept that?
A. I would have to see the documentary evidence of that.
Q. Very well. If that was the case, what are the first
places that you would be tempted to make the cuts?
A. I agree of course in the footnotes.
Q. In the footnotes?
A. But in that case I think you still have to abbreviate
footnotes. You have to provide footnote references
which
will enable other people to go and check up what you
have
written. You could have, you know, done this in such
a
way as to achieve that object.
Q. So, in summary, on the case of this policeman Hoffmann
your allegations against me rest on the statement that
I ought to have known, or ought to have noticed, there
was
a Nazi party member and I ought to----
MR RAMPTON: No, my Lord, he did not say "ought to", he
said
"must have", which is quite different.
A. Yes. He did know.
MR IRVING: Very well. In that case I have to ask again,
on
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what evidence----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have been all over that, Mr Irving,
really.
MR IRVING: Do you have any evidence that I did know?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, Mr Rampton has just reminded
you
that you accepted that you had read the whole of the
trial
evidence, including Hoffmann.
MR IRVING: Has your Lordship any idea of how many words
there
are on 8,000 pages of transcript?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have just been through that point.
MR IRVING: Yes, but the fact that one reads 8,000 pages of
transcript with no doubt many millions of words does
not
mean to say that one knows everything that is stated
about
every person in that transcript.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, what I am going to suggest is
that
you read the transcript of the last 20 minutes again
perhaps, if you have time between now and tomorrow,
and
I think you will understand why I think you will not
do
any good to your case by going all over it again.
MR IRVING: Well ----
A. The answer to your question, Mr Irving, is no, my case
against you here does not rest solely on that.
MR IRVING: On Hoffmann?
A. On the fact that you suppressed your knowledge of the
bias
in his testimony. I also, as you know, say that you
manipulate what he said.
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Q. What is your evidence for the fact that he was biased
in
his testimony?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that question has been asked and
answered sufficiently.
MR IRVING: Except that he stated it as a fact, and of
course
it is an opinion.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: In a sense it is perhaps neither. It is
an
inference from all the circumstances.
MR IRVING: A possible bias, this is true. We now pass to
Reichskristallnacht, page 233.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I accept that it is slightly
my
fault that we spent the last 20 plus minutes on the
1924
trial, but frankly I think it was vital that you did
address that. But, having got to ten past 4, would it
be
sensible to start on Kristallnacht tomorrow morning?
MR IRVING: It would be sensible, my Lord. Perhaps I can
wave
a little flag and say I shall reserve the right to
come
back to Hoffmann on a later occasion with more
material,
as your Lordship obviously attaches more significance
to
it than I do.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Only because is it one of the chain of
documents.
MR IRVING: I intend dealing with the chain of documents in
sequence on a different occasion, I think. It makes
more
sense.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I say in advance that I am going to
have
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to rise just a little bit early tomorrow, say about
4 o'clock rather than 4.15. 10.30 tomorrow.
(The witness withdrew).
(The court adjourned until the following day)
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